Yume
by nemaara
Summary: Raven dreams, her thoughts filled with memories of a life she always wanted but never could fulfill. Implied Raven/Robin.


Disclaimer: Teen Titans is not mine

I wrote a song yesterday and decided to write a story to go along with it - the song is also titled "Yume," which means 'dream' in Japanese. It can be found on my soundcloud page - search up the user "nemaara" at soundcloud . com -

This one's a little weird, it might take a bit of reading into and the style is very stream of conscious-like.

"Speech"

_Thoughts_

* * *

_A dream..._

_Memories of years long past,_

_Rains from skies overcast,_

_In solitude, I last,_

_Within this darkness so vast._

Darkness, her eyes closed, or maybe open... it mattered not. Nothingness, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing... floating within a void, quiet, tranquil, peaceful, but not the peace she had always sought, the peace that had been denied. No, not this empty... silent... alone... It was not even an oppressive darkness, merely there, a shroud, a veil, mists covering everything, or perhaps it was not. Perhaps there was nothing to be shrouded. Perhaps there was nothing at all. Everything an illusion, wistful hopes, something she should not have cared to see, irrelevant before the certainty of her own existence, which alone was absolute. The veil, the black veil, it should not have mattered, covering up the lies that it did. But maybe... maybe she wanted to see. To be fooled by illusions, so that she might not have to be so alone, even fake, she might have wanted to pretend that there was something for her, not just this cold, detached _being._

Inevitably disappointed, hopes inevitably frustrated. How long ago had she been taught not to desire anything, not even to feel anything, to be ever detached, ever remote? How could she not avoid those words of caution? Friends, companionship, even love, desire boiled within her, aching to be fulfilled, burning at her soul. Simply somewhere to fit in, since for her, absolute solitude felt akin to death, no, worse, ceaseless torment in the realization that there was _nothing. _No, she could not live like that... that would be impossible... But what foolish hope could she have had? Seeking out the people who would come the closest to understanding her, believing that maybe they could be her... friends? Fooling herself with that thought. No matter how much she wanted it, no matter how much she tried, nobody could seem to understand her. Too different, too dark, too gloomy, too cold. Yet even after finding them, living with them, realizing that it was futile, even after all that, the illusion of comprehension, of friendship, had brought out her long repressed emotions. Emotions that she wanted so badly to feel, but just could not because she was afraid of what would happen. Pure fear, not for her own sake, but for _theirs. _She didn't want to hurt them, but she didn't know how to deal with her desire to feel something... anything. Inevitably, nobody guessed at why she remained so cold, even if they called her friend and beseeched her to open up to them. _Because nobody cares. Nobody wants to take on problems that are not their own, and nobody wants to deal with someone who can't even bring herself to feel anything. Are we really friends, then? __All an illusion... _

_A dream, a shrouded veil,_

_Images of fading life so frail,_

_Fantasies surrounding me ever pale,_

_That I try to cling to, to no avail. _

Memories, jumbled inside her head. What was real? What had she merely imagined? She remembered that even among those that normal people shunned, among freaks by most standards, she was shunned...it was her darkness, the fact that she was never happy, or cheerful, or sociable, or talkative, or anything really, except sometimes angry. And moody. How could she not be? She felt it right at her fingertips, all of those bottled emotions, but always they slipped away. It was not that she was _incapable _of feeling anything. No, it was just the danger of feeling too much. Like that one time she had killed a man when her powers ran out of control, or when she had nearly killed all of her 'friends' because she had gotten angry at their pranks, but more so at their lack of understanding, or when her demon got out of control and she had frightened them, simply through her sheer power, through how evil she had seemed, or when... there were countless examples, but she could not remember if they had all really happened or not. There were there in her mind, yet there was a fuzzy quality to them, as if they were maybe just a dream.

_Everything, a dream. _She remembered being shunned when nobody tried to understand how her powers had acted up so badly. After all, she was a demon, and she was dangerous. It was a given that such things were merely a byproduct of the pure nature of her _being, _and not because she was just scared and didn't know how to deal with everything bottled up inside. No, of course not. She was a demon, and that meant that half of her was evil. There was nothing else to it, that's what they all thought. If only they knew the truth. If only they knew that she couldn't leak out emotions normally, like other people... she simply didn't know how. If there ever was a crack in her mental barriers, she merely sealed it up, and the pressure grew, grew until even the slightest touch would make it explode. Of course, one would not have expected that from a demon, and likewise she expected nobody to see that either.

She tried, desperately, to reach out, but within the void there was nobody to listen. She tried releasing her emotions, but there was nothing. Detached, she felt nothing in her head, except perhaps a vague sense of melancholy, faint sadness. Too far gone to be brought back. When had it come to this?

By nature, expressing herself was not something that came to her easily, for it was not only her powers that kept her feelings detached, but her own personality. Introverted, possibly to an extreme, it was likely that she would not have openly shared herself with others. But worlds apart from not desiring someone to talk to should she need it. No, she would not be desperate a hundred percent of the time, but when she was, she had hoped there would be someone there for her. _A futile hope... A dream... _

_A nightmare, lost in my mind,_

_Crying out, my voice confined,_

_To me, all eyes stricken blind,_

_To my fate I fall, resigned. _

_No... __It wasn't always like this... _And suddenly the darkness began to brighten, a pale imitation of the world flooding into view. She rose, drifting about, finding herself near the remnants of an ancient, broken down tower in the shape of an enormous T. Drifting, drifting through the thin veils of snow falling about her, above the sheer white blanket covering the ground, yet still another wanderer in the empty world, beneath the grey, overcast skies, just another wanderer. Lost, stricken by cold, permeating her body, her already frozen body, the cloak of black about her gradually stained white by the shedding skies. Utterly alone. Not another soul in sight, nobody, nobody-

Her mouth opened, as if to speak, but nothing coming out, her breath fizzling up into mist before her eyes, her eyes that would not leave it.

A figure atop a building, that fled as she approached. Dissolving before her. _No... __come back... please, I need you... _She could not bring herself to feel anything, no, she was too cold for that, but still part of her yearned to see him again. No, not just yearned, demanded, it compelled her to pursue him, lest obsession consume her. A white raven, flying through the equally white sky, but then stricken ash grey, stricken coal black as it approached him, darkness within her present again. He looked back at her, shook his head, and turned away.

_It matters not whether I wear a cloak of white or black. I am still who I am. Please, understand me. Please, don't leave me behind. Why do you turn from me? Why do you run, when you know that I need you? _

Something stirred, a slight warmth in her heart, kindled, but instantly blown away by the freezing winds. Staring at his back, at his unmoving figure, moving, to the unresponding face, stone cold...

"Why do you seek me now? When there is nothing I can give you..."

She touched him, but it was merely a statue of ice, frozen solid by the glacial snowdrift of time, crumbling before her fingers, breaking apart, severed... She drew back, as if burned, a faint sadness within her. _Gone. Always gone. There is never anything. _Faintly melancholic, perhaps the limit of what she could feel. Closing her eyes, turning away, a blizzard about her, sheathing everything in pure white, save for her own black cloak, and the frozen body beside her. Eyes opening, staring at her hands, into the snow, searching for something, something above, something below, beside her... _there is something missing. _Inward. _Something within me. Something is gone, but I do not know what it is. I had not realized... __  
_

_Something _was missing.

The statue behind her cracked and fell apart, carved flesh becoming mere ice, then dissolving into blue dust, spirited away into the flying snow about her. Her own body, slowly dissipating, black fading into white, her corporeal form abandoned, a spirit, wandering, still alone, _like a dream, in this dream world, where there is nothing, not even in illusions. _

Sparkling light from within the snow, a hall of mirrors converging about her ethereal body, reflecting the image of herself, pale yellows, blues, greens, reds, magenta, blood, grass, amethyst, amber, peach, coral, a mirage of colors, cloaking her body, all pale, faded, as if they were merely part of her imagination, things that were once real, things long dispensed with. No, abandoned? Or merely lost. Something missing... through the mirrors, passing by each reflection, a distant joy, distant anger, stifled fear, muted love, something far off, perhaps the slightest tinge within her, but the strings of her heart barely plucked. Faint emotions, no more. Just a memory.

Turning to the final mirror, blocking her path forward at the end of the hall, a reflection of who she really was now, after the dreary years, or maybe centuries, or maybe aeons of living alone.

Nothing. _Yes. _She stared into the blank mirror, her body an outline in it, but no more. _Nothing at all. I am nothing. I have always been nothing. _

_Nothing but a dream,_

_Lost in time's endless stream._

A finger traced her lips, but not her own. Had she said something aloud? Eyes shifting, meeting not the black and white of a mask, but the sparkling, intensely colored eyes of someone she should've known. Her eyes misted with confusion, his name forgotten, yet his body, his face, his eyes so familiar...

_Eyes of an azure gleam, _

_With fiery ardor they teem. _

"You are cold." His fingers continued tracing her bluish lips, tracing the lines on her pale face.

"I have always been cold."

"No warmth," he placed a hand over her heart.

Barely a stir, no more, what feeling she once had forever lost-

"You are lost. But not forgotten. I am here."

Her eyes shifting up, half lidded, something far beneath their surface glimmering, a mask of pale violet burying all passion. No, dark violet, at once distantly bitter, remotely happy, yet her heart still would not dare to stir. No, her emotions too far to summon, frozen in the winter wind.

"You are far gone. Beyond my saving. I'm... sorry. Forgive me, I must leave you."

His hand, moving off of her face, slipping into her own, warm, comfortable, her own skin like that of a freezing corpse. Her fingers, frigid, ice cold, without strength... she could not hold on to him. His hand, slipping away from her, disappearing into the veil of rime. A voice, whispering through the snow, almost as a voice from the past, from memories forgotten.

_Remember. Once you were more than an empty soul. Once you were human, like us. Once you lived, breathed, and felt too. _

Color, appearing from the sheet of white surrounding her, a mirage of pure color, whirling about her, a glorious array of hues, focusing into trees, grass, roads, buildings, _people... can it be? _

A city, emerging from pure blankness, a city full of life that was not her own, filled with a vitality that did not belong to her. People, passing by her, as if she did not exist, as if she were invisible. Reaching out to touch them, only to find that they slipped through her hands like rain from clouds. _Not real. A world I could not be a part of. _

Faintly disappointed, turning away, but her heart still empty, feeling nothing. Just another illusion.

"You look lonely."

A boy, wearing a black and white mask, dressed in vibrant color, holding his hand out to her. Her violet eyes, staring at it, as if unsure of what to do. Half expecting him to withdraw his hand, turn away any minute, leave her in empty peace, leave her in her endless solitude... a frown, he approached her, she remained still.

His hand, moving toward her own, grasping on, their fingers intertwined, _latching on... __as if his heart beats strong enough for the both of us. _

"It does," a smile... how long had it been since she had seen one of those?

He pulled at her. She moved. Darkness surrounding her, shrouding her face, an anomaly in the bright world about her... he did not seem to mind. An acceptance of who she was, for he knew that dressing her in black or white would make no difference.

A stir, she felt it, a slight beat of her heart, but she dared not feel more. It died away once more.

_Dying, a beating heart's end,_

_Life, beyond all hope to mend,_

_Into solitude I descend,_

_In the void, eternity I spend._

"Not alone," a whisper. "You were never alone."

An violet eye opening, her heart beat again, only once, before stopping. A frown, and he turned, holding both of her hands in his own. Two fingers coming up, pressing lightly between her breasts, feeling nothing, sensing nothing, nothing beneath the shell of skin and bone.

"I am lost. Abandon me." Her voice, a wisp of wind, no more.

His hands slipped out of hers. And moved up to her shoulders. "I could never abandon a friend."

A pulse of warmth through her, fading quickly. He took of his mask, eyes piercing into her own. "You must believe me. I am willing to listen, if you are willing to share. Please," a desperate cry, for the warmth to return, for the aching cold within her to disappear.

"I do not belong here," the ice of time, calling her back. "You are merely a memory, no more."

"This can be real! You don't have to hold it all inside!" His voice, ardent, brimming with emotion.

"There is nothing left inside me. I must go."

Snow, cold, void, calling her back, beckoning to her. The vibrant colors of the world around her paling slightly, darkness creeping at its edges. He looked around wildly, then grabbed her hand, forcing her to stay in place. A blink, another pulse of warmth through her. And a second.

"You aren't real. You can't be real."

"Why do you try to deny it? Isn't this what you've always wanted?"

"This is all a dream. Nothing more. Please, you must let me go."

"Over my dead body."

She shook her head, eyes closing. Melancholy, working at her heart. "You are already dead. No more than a memory. A mere memory."

_Memory of lost love_

_That could not become my dove,_

_A past which hope, void of_

_My soul could not rise above. _

His eyes, devastated, their fading light beckoning to her, bright sapphire paling, with the pallor of death, the end of illusion approaching. His body, fading with the rest of the world, back to oblivion, all else gone, save for her own, empty body. People disappearing, each soul a spark, flaring up in the failing light before leaving forever. His hand leaving hers, falling, falling to the abyss.

And suddenly, lurching up, grabbing onto her, no, reaching around her, crushing her cold, lifeless body against his own, pressing his warmth into her. The world, slowly brightening again, coming back into view. Her heart beat once, twice, thrice.

"Don't leave me," he whispered. "I need you too, _Raven._"

Her heart beat once more. And stopped.

Violet disappearing, everything fading away into drifting melancholy. She turned away, and it was all gone, colors deepened into blackness, sounds dying, smells dissipating, touch... numbing... Back into the void, bereft of feeling, memories nothing but a forgotten thought.

Her eyes opened, darkness greeting them, ever present darkness, void of sound, light, life, or touch. She closed her eyes. _Something is missing. I wonder what it is. _A hand moved up to her chest. Clutched at it, drawing blood, but no pain. Relaxing again, moving back down to her side. _Ah yes, I remember what it was. Nothing more than a dream..._


End file.
